From classroom to crime watch

All teachers strive to hit their targets, but business teacher Nick Heiting loves to hit his Target.

When he’s not teaching at West Bend West High School, Heiting works in the asset protection department at the Target retail store in Menomonee Falls. He is currently in an on-demand position and for the first time was asked to work the morning of Black Friday.

“Typically we don’t have asset protection come in early but we had to come in to make sure everything was set up and everything was structured so we were doing bag giveaways to the first hundred people,” Heiting said. “There were a lot of people that came in when the doors opened at six o’clock. A lot of people I knew came in at six o’clock which was kind of interesting and fun, but everybody was pretty much under control and just focused on what they needed to do shopping wise, so that was good.”

The bag giveaway from Target was part of a promotion to get people in the stores. The bags were filled with freebies. Getting a silver ticket from a bag meant customers would get a prize, with the largest one being a Slushy Maker. Heiting was responsible for giving the prizes to the winners.

“The crazy thing about it is some of the people didn’t really want the prize that they got,” Heiting said. “The guy who got the hair dryer, he had basically no hair and he was asking if he could trade it for something else and the rule was, well you won, so you just figure out what to do with it.”

Heiting also noted how the event of Black Friday has changed with the rise of online ordering.

“I think it’s better than it was back in the late ‘90s, early 2000s,” he said. “It was a lot more mass chaos, it was a lot more people rushing in the stores and there’d be three items available at a certain price and I think the organization makes it a lot safer for people and it’s more structured.”

Heiting says he did not experience any incidents while working on Black Friday.

His Target store has had many incidents in the past, though, and when that happens the store takes action, especially in the asset protection division.

“It gets kind of interesting in those situations,” Heiting said. “One of my most annoying ones, kids got kicked out of the store, and they came back an hour later and did a full sprint all the way around the inside of the store. I saw them coming on camera, because they came sprinting out of the parking lot, and I came around to try and meet them in the middle of the store, and one guy, I almost physically tackled him.”

“A lot of people I knew came in at six o’clock which was kind of interesting and fun.”

Nick Heiting

Another time a woman went running and dove into the exterior shrubbery. Officers ended up tackling her in the bushes.

Heiting says Target keeps track of shoplifters and has a new policy that leads to offenders being charged with trespassing. Law enforcement has at times been called and there have been multiple scenarios where they tackle fleeing suspects.

“You come back, I can find you, we’ve got you in the photo Rolodex,” he said, adding that the new policy of trespassing often results in a one-year ban.

Microsoft Viva Engage, previously called Yammer, is an app used by the employees to keep track of shoplifting histories and share videos of store theft. Heiting calls it a “Facebook of theft.” He also says the team at Target watches everything and regularly uses walkie-talkies.

“One of us is in the office watching them on cameras and we’re trying to communicate back and forth,” he said. “And the heart beats pretty good when those kinds of things happen, and sometimes it ends up being nothing, and sometimes it ends up being an apprehension at the door for theft.”

Heiting took the job at Target in June 2022 and says his daughter loves hearing his work stories. He also personally shops there using the employee discount, and its location is convenient for him. Heiting lives right across the street.

“I like shopping there,” he said. “They have everything you need. One of my rules in life was that I always wanted to live within 10 miles of a Target.”

Top image: WBHS business teacher Nick Heiting works at the Target store in Menomonee Falls on Black Friday. Photo by Keaton Beltmann, Current staff.

The West Bend Current